Why you should visit a nature reserve closer to home.

March 27, 2016May 11, 2018 ~ Lalitha Krishnan ~ Leave a comment

Invite an expert and take your family along.

We have a saying in India, “the home-bred chicken is as ordinary as your daily dal (lentil)”. If you have a nature reserve or green and wide open spaces in your backyard, you’re likely to take it for granted. You don’t visit it because you think it’s not going away. That’s how I felt about Jaberkhet Nature Reserve (earlier known as Flag Hill), which is only a twenty-minute walk from my home. I walk the forest trails often but not often enough. I visit the reserve to click photographs without quite observing or consciously listening.

Recently I joined an organized walk with expert environmentalists from two different fields: Chris Hails and Dr. Gopal S Rawat. Chris Hails who works at the Director level for WWI in Switzerland was recording bird sounds at the JNR while Dr. Gopal S Rawat, Dean, Faculty of Wildlife Sciences, Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, was walking us through the local ecology of the area.

A demo of bird song recording

Dr Rawat

It was a rare opportunity and privilege to walk with these two very knowledgeable people besides being a great way to spend a morning. I began to hear and learn new things every step of the way. The JNR* has undergone an astounding transformation in a short span of time. Revived species of plants are visible everywhere. The forest is resounding with bird calls. One sees a variety of scat. The reserve takes on a different look every season. Right now, the Rhododendron trees are adding vivid bursts of red to the hillside. JNR is also home to various animals and birds that we didn’t know existed in our vicinity but for camera-traps that have digitally captured them. Seeing is believing!

I came away with a deeper appreciation of the space I share with wildlife and more respect for conservationists like Hails and Rawat, and their fellow environmentalist Sejal Wohra, who runs the reserve with a lot of passion and sparse funding. Moreover, it made me realise that the onus of preserving wild spaces like this rests equally on people like me and you – the community.

Sejal with visitors

Visitor with Viru the guide

Nature reserves and green spaces are vulnerable and do disappear to make way for “developmental” projects for several reasons. When that happens, species disappear overnight. So please, if you haven’t already, do visit a nature reserve or forest/lake/natural open space close to you. Pack a picnic lunch. Learn about species you share the habitat with. You may well be surprised by who and what resides so close to you. Take your friends along. Donate. It’s easy. Volunteer. It’s a little harder but certainly doable. Contribute in any way you can. Start a club. Share on social media. Keep your backyard and enjoy it too.

Rhododendron Buds

Tell tale signs

In full bloom

*JNR is a part of an initiative set up as a private partnership between the owners of the land (the family of the Late Shri J P Jain) and Sejal Wohra (Programme Director WWF-India). Thanks to their joint efforts JNR is a perfect example of what can be achieved with the cooperation of locals and the know-how of professional environmentalists.

: The local villages are involved in the protection of the reserve. Tree lopping and cow grazing have altogether stopped. The local are receiving training and employment and have turned into protector of the forests

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If you would like to get involved with JNR write to sejalwohra@gmail.com or visit http://www.Jaberkhetnature.com

Lifeblood of the hills. The coolies of Mussoorie

Prompt delivery thanks to Manoj and coolies like him

April 20, 2014April 18, 2016 ~ Lalitha Krishnan ~ 2 Comments

Ever since we moved to the meandering, steep slopes of Mussoorie, I’ve been wondering how anyone, let alone the Brits of yore, could survive the hills without the intrepid Nepali coolie. (Coolie is a corruption of the Tamil kuli=wage or wage worker) I moved here from Ranikhet and we don’t see so many coolies there though I am sure most other hill stations depend on them a great deal. Initially, I rarely noticed the Nepali coolies myself; they do tend to blend into the hillside. You could say, it was my indifference that made me not ‘see’. If you were to remove all these coolies from the hillside, life here would be another kettle of fish altogether.

Manoj, one of the nicest coolies on the hillside

I live on a hilltop, a good 45 minute-walk from the market. Hypothetically speaking, if I choose not to leave my home for a month I could get by just by ordering on the phone. The car doesn’t come to our door step. No prizes for guessing who delivers all my provisions, carries sacks of manure for my potted geraniums, the 1/2 quintal of chopped wood for my winter stove… Or worse comes to worst, carries me out on a stretcher if I fracture a leg and can’t walk. For crying out loud, the house I live in wouldn’t have been built but for these coolies carrying the foundation bricks on their backs. At the cost of sounding flippant, I like to think of coolies as the Flipkart of the hills; they deliver. Moreover, they’re far more efficient, their work, far more commendable. I confess I haven’t stood in a queue since I moved here or waited days-on-end for a gas-cylinder refill! If you’re thinking ‘hills’ for an healthy lifestyle, find a hillside without coolies. They make life too easy! Nepali coolies are the hardiest workers I’ve seen; virtually unstoppable. You’ll pass them digging road side trenches bare handed in the grips of our Mussoorie winter and getting soaked to the bone in our cold monsoon-rain for a bread and egg delivery. Despite the cards they’ve been dealt, I find Nepali coolies to be a cheerful lot. I don’t quite subscribe to the theory that being mountain people they have more RBCs than most of us and therefore, are genetically stronger. So what ails our local hilly-billies? Can someone check their blood count and tell?

It’s the attitude and not the altitude that makes the Nepali coolie indispensable. It’s no secret that migrants work harder. Some of these coolies come from remote villages in Nepal 3-4 days journey away from here. For what, you wonder? Every coolie-dependent business is flourishing. Yet, the coolies’ earnest simplicity hasn’t got them too far. They’re ignored till required, kept at arm’s length and left to their own fate. They carry 25-30 kg loads multiple times a day for 5-6 km uphill for peanuts! The rate per load/day probably hasn’t changed for years. What can we do to improve their lot? Acknowledge their existence for starters? Treat them as humans not mules? Realise their worth? What do you think?

12 cartons of milk, 1 tray of eggs, flour, butter 2 litres of oil, 5 kgs of rice et lots more. — 12 cartons of milk, 1 tray of eggs, flour, butter, 2 litres of oil et lots more.

My First Losar in the Himalayas, in the year of the Wood horse.

March 9, 2014January 21, 2017 ~ Lalitha Krishnan ~ 3 Comments

Losar is the Tibetan (Wood-horse*) New Year.

In the dark just before dawn, when the blinding mist is in your face and you need several woolen layers to cut the biting cold, I found myself making my way to the school bus – still half an hour away – dressed in all my borrowed Tibetan finery. I hitched up my Tibetan Chuba with one hand, grabbed my umbrella and torch with another, prayed the rain wouldn’t soak right through and the local leopard wasn’t hungry – though not necessarily in that order. I half-stumbled, half-ran down the hill to find I was the first to arrive. The plan was to go down to the Mindrolling Monastery in Dehradun with our students to celebrate Losar. Half an hour later a bus load of sleepy kids and us chaperones headed down the winding road. For the first time, I noticed fresh snow on the sides of the road. Then the sun came out and it was a beautiful day to the end.

The resonant sound of at least a hundred chanting monks welcomed us as we entered the monastery.

Sitting cross-legged, behind a row of novices, I watched monks making offerings and also receiving new year gifts/donations in the form of scarves, robes, cash, treats. Sweet rice and butter tea were served, followed by individual packs of treats which were handed out to our students and unexpectedly, to us chaperones too. I was surprised to be at the receiving end and yes, ridden by a sense of guilt; it should have been the other way around surely?

Like all places of worship, the monastery grounds seemed to be a favourite jaunt for senior denizens.We visited a monastery close by where the young novices were housed. Once again we were treated to sweet rice, butter tea, and snacks. Novices introduced themselves one by one. It was quite an emotional moment. Contemplating on the austerity of their childhood I was aware how ostentatious my own life seems in comparison. I had to remind myself that these boys will be looked after and looked after well here for the rest of their lives. Who’s to say there isn’t another future Dalai Lama amongst them?

We also visited our Tibetan colleagues’ new home where they generously fed the lot of us to a grand Tibetan feast.The Rajaji National Park borders their new home; they have been visited by a wild elephant once. It won’t be the last time I’m sure!